ken out of his body and thrown on the
dunghill, and notice was to be taken whether a raven or a dove got
possession of them; if a raven, then his body was to be taken away by the
foot, and not by the side of the bed, and through the wall, and not
through the door, and he was to be buried, not in the churchyard nor in
the Church, but under the Church walls. And the devil, when he saw that
by these arrangements he had been duped cried, saying:--

Dafydd Hiraddug, badly bred,

False when living, and false when dead.

Such is the tale. I now come to another series of Folk-Lore stories,
which seem to imply that in ancient days rival religions savagely
contended for the supremacy, and in these tales also Satan occupies a
prominent position.

_Satan and Churches_.

The traditional stories that are still extant respecting the determined
opposition to the erection of certain churches in particular spots, and
the removal of the materials during the night to some other site, where
ultimately the new edifice was obliged to be erected, and the many
stories of haunted churches, where evil spirits had made a lodgment, and
could not for ages be ousted, are evidences of the antagonism of rival
forms of paganism, or of the opposition of an ancient religion to the new
and intruding Christian Faith.

Brash in his _Ogam Inscribed Stones_, p. 109, speaking of Irish Churches,
says:--

"It is well known that many of our early churches were erected on sites
professedly pagan."

The most ancient churches in Wales have circular or ovoidal
churchyards--a form essentially Celtic--and it may well be that these
sacred spots were dedicated to religious purposes in pagan times, and
were appropriated by the early Christians,--not, perhaps, without
opposition on the part of the adherents of the old faith--and consecrated
to the use of the Christian religion. In these churchyards were often to
be found holy, or sacred wells, and many of them still exist, and modes
of divination were practised at these wells, which have come down to our
days, and which must have originated in pre-Christian or pagan times.

It is highly probable that the older faith would for a while exist
concurrently with the new, and mutual contempt and annoyance on the part
of the supporters of the respective beliefs would as naturally follow in
those times as in any succeeding age, but this fact should be
emphasised--that the modes of warfare would correspon